Keith Young

School and District Improvement Facilitator

Keith Young is a School and District Improvement Facilitator with WestEd's Center for Child & Family Studies and the Comprehensive School Assistance Program, focusing his work in Arizona, California, Illinois, and Wisconsin. He empowers teachers, schools, and districts to improve academic and social-emotional outcomes for students.
Young brings more than 25 years' experience teaching and leading preK-12 schools and programs. As a turnaround principal in elementary and middle schools, Young led 30 and 40 percent gains in state reading and math scores annually. Elementary and high schools under his coaching attained equivalent results.
Young's expertise in research and practice is leadership and teacher coaching, instruction, equity, and whole-school improvement. For example, he was the lead WestEd partner in the inaugural program training preschool coaches in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Work with WestEd partners places Young in more than 1,000 preschool through university classrooms a year working with teachers and teacher coaches to analyze practice, model coaching, and provide feedback on coaching. In addition, each year Young coaches several principals and teacher coaches throughout the United States.
His published works regarding school reform have appeared in Kappan and Voices. Young authored a book on presentation skills that is in prepublication. And, he is working on a book regarding individual and team coaching.
Young is a frequent presenter on professional development topics for Learning Forward and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Prior to joining WestEd, Young worked with Achieve 3000, Denver Public Schools, the Department of Defense Education Activity, and Qatar's Supreme Education Council.
Young received a BS in education from Jacksonville State University, and a MEd from National Louis University. His current doctoral work involves equity in school district leadership.